


Jon Snow's Real Name Is...

by Alyndra



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Jon Snow is Not Called Aegon, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Lyanna thinks about all the names she could possibly give Jon, author spent way too long geeking out on the wiki, not Game of Thrones (TV) compliant, so many potential baby names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25636279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyndra/pseuds/Alyndra
Summary: Lyanna's got little to do in the Tower of Joy but think of the past, and the future she carries.
Relationships: Jon Snow & Lyanna Stark
Kudos: 11





	Jon Snow's Real Name Is...

**Author's Note:**

> I decided on the ridiculous premise of this fic after noticing just [how](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query%5Bname%5D=jon+call*&query%5Btype%5D=Freeform) [many](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query%5Bname%5D=jon+name*&query%5Btype%5D=Freeform) names are proposed for Jon in tags around here. Much thanks to [awoiaf.org](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/) for the Stark and Targaryen genealogies, and I also learned a lot from [In Deep Geek's YouTube series](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVTclEEyY1SKQjULdfHKr7zB6Mi67Nh40) about Rhaegar, Lyanna, and the history and context of the war they (sort of) started. 
> 
> And then I proceeded to Develop Opinions (a terrible mistake, I know). Please forgive me.

Lyanna Stark had a long time to think of baby names, while the world burned down around her. Rhaegar had ridden to battle before the babe began to kick, and before that he'd kissed her and talked of a daughter named Visenya to match his son Aegon and daughter Rhaenys. Like the three Targaryen conquerors, the first to ride dragons into Westeros, King Aegon and his sister-wives Visenya and Rhaenys - only all Lyanna's dreams lately, and also the maester's muttering, were of baby boys.

Well, if it came out a girl she would name it Visenya like Rhaegar wanted. But if it was a boy? The traditional male form was Viserys, and Rhaegar already had a younger brother with that name. True, she could find a similar enough Targaryen variation on the theme...Targaryens liked to give their children similar names. From Aegon had sprung Aemon, Aegion, Aerys, Aerion, and dozens more. Starting with V, there had been Vaegon the dragonless, and Viserion, or Valarr...but none of them were notable. Visenya's dragon was Vhagar...but the Targaeryens did not usually name their princes after their dragons.

Jahaerys, that was a well-respected name. King Jahaerys the Conciliator, the Wise - with his queen and six dragons, he was the first Targaryen to visit Winterfell, two hundred years and more ago. Time had not tarnished the memory of his long reign of peace. King Aerys' father had been King Jahaerys II, who'd died before Lyanna was born. And one of Rhaegar's poor little brothers, too, a Prince Jahaerys who was born and died nine years ago. Perhaps Jahaerys would be a good name, an honorable name for her husband's family...

...Or Jacaerys, who was the last dragonrider prince to be hosted at Winterfell. He had asked Lord Cregan Stark for the aid of the North in the Dance of the Dragons, when the Targaryens fought their brothers, sisters and cousins for the Iron Throne. Prince Jacaerys had signed the Pact of Ice and Fire with Lord Cregan and promised his own firstborn daughter, when he should have such, to wed Cregan's son. Cregan Stark had sent two armies south to restore peace and meted out justice to the kinslayers who sat in the small council in King's Landing, but by then Prince Jacaerys had died without children and there never had been any marriage of a Stark to a Targaryen.

Not until Lyanna herself had spoken the words with Rhaegar before the weirwood trees, at any rate. Perhaps Jacaerys would be a worthy name for a babe to fulfill the old agreement.

But Rhaegar had lost his battle, and would never come home again to see his child. She might as well ride direct to King's Landing herself and lay her babe's throat bare before the usurper Robert as give him such a name. Sometimes she cried uncontrollably, prisoner of her gravid body's emotions even more than of her stone walls. She'd been so happy when she'd ridden here, full of talk of love and prophecy and grand futures.

Everything had gone so unimaginably wrong since then. Her unborn child's siblings lay dead in King's Landing, Rhaegar's dreams all dashed to pieces. Lyanna's brother Ned even now rode south to find her, before Robert could track her down. "Robert thinks I'm to be his, but I won't let him have me, and he won't lay a finger on you," she whispered fiercely to her belly. "I'll make sure of it."

A good plain name, that was what her baby needed, especially if it was to be a son whose claim would stand before his young uncle Viserys. A name no one would think anything of. "Jon," she whispered, trying it out. Rhaegar had cared for his friend Jon Connington, now exiled forever. And from the crypts of Winterfell, she knew there was an ancient King Jon Stark. She liked the idea of her child having a Stark name. Even better, the Seven Kingdoms, the North especially, were full of Jons. And if Ned were the one to raise the baby, if Lyanna couldn't...no one would think it odd that he was named Jon after Ned's foster father, Jon Arryn of the Vale, the man who had started a war for Ned and Robert. There would be babes all over the land for the next few years being named Jon and Robert and maybe even Eddard.

Perhaps it was too common. Jon Snow sounded well to her ear, but Jon Targaryen rang discordant, if he should one day want to reclaim his heritage. A longer variation? There had been a Jorah Stark and a Jonos with statues in the crypts too, and a Lord Jonnel Stark more recently. Here in the south, Jonothor Darry had died with Rhaegar at the Trident, honorable Kingsguard to the last.

Or perhaps she should name him after his poor dead brother Aegon after all. Aegon, Aejon...it wasn't such a stretch, the lad could still go by Jon. There had been many a Targaryen by that name since Aegon the Conqueror first landed on Westeros shores. Would her son be a conqueror, too? Take back the kingdom from the Usurper and beat all the Seven Kingdoms into submission? Lyanna frowned. That was not the purpose for which Rhaegar had sought the fulfillment of prophecy, sung the songs that had convinced her to join him so far away from her home and family.

No, the Prince That Was Promised had a higher purpose than _that._ "There was a Battle for the Dawn once before, to end the Long Night," Lyanna said to herself, to her unborn child, as she watched the road for riders. "The North remembers. The last hero fought then, and Bran the Builder made the Wall and set the Night's Watch there to keep back the Others." She hummed a few bars of _The Night That Ended,_ sung every harvest in Winterfell. "The Others tried again to invade the lands of men, but Joramun, the King-Beyond-the-Wall, blew the Horn of Winter and helped Brandon the Breaker defeat the Night's King...the Starks remember. Winter is coming. If the Prince that was promised is to defeat the darkness, he should have a name from legend."

There were a great many Brandons in the Stark family tree, but she did not want to name this child after her oldest brother, who had hated Rhaegar so much he died of it. There would be other Starks named Brandon. "Joramun," she said, trying out the name. "Joramun Targaryen." It was not quite right. "Jor _aemon_ Targaryen, then, for the hero who raised the giants and for Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, the noblest knight who ever lived." She thought it had a ring to it. "A name that combines the legends of north and south, of winter's ice and dragon's fire..." Abruptly she remembered Rhaegar saying, "For his is the song of ice and fire," and she shivered. She had loved Rhaegar's singing, but all of his songs had been sad, it seemed. And he had thought, before he left, that his first son, baby Aegon born of Elia, was the Prince That Was Promised. What were such promises worth, in the end?

* * *

When Ned leaned close to hear her voice, a few days later, as she lay exhausted in her birthing-bed, she told him, "His name is Jon Snow. Keep him _safe,_ Ned, you must promise me..."


End file.
